Tag: Religion and Spirituality

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Endless Joy by Ricky

To me “joy” is “happiness on steroids.” “Infinite” is a synonym for “endless”. “Eternal” is a synonym for “Infinite,” therefore, I maintain it follows that “endless joy” can be expressed as “Eternal Joy” or the life of an eternal being.

Heaven is often described as a place where we will go for our “eternal rest” often expressed as singing with the angels and playing a harp while relaxing on soft puffy clouds in a peaceful bucolic environment where we will have no cares or worries beyond singing or playing the correct notes. Our bodies will have been resurrected into their perfect young adult form with no blemishes, diseases will not exist, and no sadness will distract us from our musical talent and performances. In that state we will live forever, to infinity and beyond. Could anything be wrong with this description?

I was taught by my religion teachers that earth-life is a probationary state of existence and it is here where we are to prepare ourselves to meet God when this life is over. So are there any similarities between Heaven where God lives and this planet we call Earth?

In Genesis we read that after six “days” (periods of creation) God rested. Good! We can expect to rest, but He worked six “days” before He rested. In our society most people only work 5 days and get 2 periods of rest. We are often referred to as the children of God, that’s why we call Him our Heavenly Father. Do you suppose that He will work six days while we all sit around singing and playing harps? Even parents down here don’t allow that. So, I expect we will be doing come kind of heavenly chores (like making divinity or polishing the gold-brick sidewalks and streets) and only sing and play harps on the celestial Sabbath.

In the Book of Revelations, we are told of a war in heaven in which 1/3 of the inhabitants of Heaven rebelled against God (who was righteously angry and not happy) and as punishment were cast down to (or imprisoned on) the Earth along with the Devil (Satan, if you prefer). Well, we have wars here too, so apparently we are being well prepared for Heavenly-life. Wars of rebellion are begun by angry people upset with the government the leaders of which are not happy with the situation. As a result, people die and there is much unhappiness. And, of course, we also punish our rebels with imprisonment or casting them into the earth.

I don’t sing well and I can’t play a harp, so where is the joy? I don’t know about any of you, but harp music and choral singing is only music to my ears for so long, and one “day” of a thousand earth-years of rest is well beyond my limit of tolerance.

In this earth-life, I am happiest when I am engaged in positive activities with my family and circle of friends. I expect God is happiest when He is with His children and family members as well. So, while Heaven, in fact, may not be all that peaceful or carefree, as long as I have friends around helping me with my celestial or cosmic chores, I will be filled with as much joy as I can have for endless time into infinity and beyond.

© 6 January 2014

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

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Coming Out Spiritually by Betsy

Contemplating today’s topic I realize that before I can write anything about the subject I must be clear about what is meant by “coming out.” In the context of sexual orientation it means first that I acknowledge and accept that I am homosexual and that I am willing and able to openly declare that I am gay. Stated another way: “coming out” means revealing a truth about myself. Of course, if I do indeed accept my homosexuality, it naturally follows that I will not spend my life in the closet and I have no problem with declaring my sexual orientation to the rest of the world.

I am examining the phrase “coming out” because it is usually used in the context of sexual orientation. So when applied to spirituality I find there is a problem. That is that in the case of sexual orientation I am applying the phrase to the way I AM, who I am. In the case of spirituality I am referring to what I believe or do not believe, regardless of who I am. “I AM what I believe?” This statement does not ring true for me. What I believe is something I do, not who I am, and what I do or think can change from one day to the next. Furthermore, if coming out means revealing the truth about myself, then coming out spiritually is impossible because spirituality is based on faith, not known facts.

Enough semantic gymnastics. For the sake of today’s topic coming out spiritually means that I acknowledge that I have certain beliefs about the nature of the universe and the nature of life and death and I am willing and able to make these beliefs known to others.

In this way the two comings out (sexual orientation and spirituality) are similar. Also similar is the fact that coming out in both cases ends with the declaration as mentioned above to others and ends there. That is, I have no need or desire to try to persuade others of my sexual way of life or my spiritual beliefs.

I consider my sexual orientation and lifestyle to be a personal matter as do I regard my spiritual beliefs. Another similarity. What is different about the two comings out is that my sexual orientation has stayed the same throughout my life; of course, that’s who I A M and that’s not going to change. On the other hand my spiritual beliefs are ever-changing. Furthermore I am constantly asking questions, observing, hopefully learning and developing beliefs around my spirituality; ie, changing my ideas about the nature of the universe and where I fit into it. Whatever ideas evolve in my head are beliefs though, not facts. You could argue that my sexual orientation, acknowledgement and acceptance and revelation thereof, has everything to do with my spirit. Used in this broader context then, I believe, revealing anything about myself IS coming out spiritually.

Okay, then, here it is: what I happen to believe today. My spiritual coming out.

There is more to me than a brain and a body and that once that body dies my spirit, essence, Being will go on. In what form I do not know. That spirit, essence, Being is within me now and always as long as I exist in this form. The key word here is WITHIN. The power of the Universe is within all of us not out there somewhere making rules and orchestrating our existence.

Coming out spiritually means that I have abandoned the religious teachings and traditions with which I was raised. I have departed from those beliefs. It means that I accept that I have no answers to the usual questions about the nature of life and death. In other words I have no beliefs about such matters except as described above. I have not taken any leap of faith. The only thing I really know for sure at this moment is that I DON’T Know. And when I really think about it I come to the conclusion that I don’t need to know.

Historically and still today however it appears that most people do need to know or more truthfully stated: it appears to me that most people do need to believe in something. History has shown that many people, especially collectively not only need to believe, but need others to believe as they do, and are often distrustful of those who have a different belief system. Of course, now I am talking about power and politics and that is another subject for many future discussions and story telling writing topics.

July 1, 2013

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years. Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Letter to My Younger Self by Pat Gourley

My goodness where to start? Perhaps Dan Savage has written the ultimate short three word letter for many of us: It gets better!

If I ever needed to hear that advice it was probably around the age of eleven or twelve. For several years around that time, the late 1950’s, I was really tormented with the whole concept of sin and that I was certainly going to hell for being the major league transgressor I was sure that I was. My weekly confessions to the local parish priest were affairs I would agonize endlessly over for hours. I often felt they were not complete and that I had left some major heinous sin out of the litany for that week.

One might think this had to do with newly discovered joy of masturbation but I was nowhere near that, not for a few years yet, I was a late bloomer really. No it was more a vague persistent ennui, a sense that I was not quite right but different from my peers in not a good Catholic way. I distinctly remember around that time hearing or perhaps being called “queer” and looking this up in the dictionary. The definition given was “odd” and when I decided this was a great word to hurtle at my numerous siblings and cousins I was reprimanded soundly by my mother to not use that word because it could mean something besides “odd” though I was never provided with other meanings until several years later.

There was never much overt bulling in my Catholic School. The nuns were very good at enforcing order and beside they and our other non-clergy instructors were too busy enforcing a much more insidious and blanketed psychological form of bullying under the guise of shaping and forming the minds of young Catholic citizens.

Because of this nagging worry and guilt that my confessions did not include every sin committed I would often not take Sunday Communion. The injunction was that you needed to have confessed all outstanding sins on your books before partaking of the flesh and blood of Christ in the form of a miraculously transformed little wafer.

I don’t want to venture too far into the weeds of self-psychoanalysis here but I do think it was my fledgling queer awakening that was at the root of much of my sense of not being worthy to ingest the body and blood of Christ. It would of course attract much unwanted attention from family and fellow parishioners when I would not go up for Communion many Sunday mornings. My parents were aware of my ongoing angst and my dad even tried to address it one evening in a car ride we took together. In hindsight this was a very loving gesture but tended mostly to cement even further that there was something different about me. I now am reminded of a favorite caveat from Harry Hay one where he would say that straight fathers could smell a gay son. We actually smelled different was his conversation evoking meme. Perhaps my dad smelled something distinctly different about me.

My mental and physical agitation around trying to be the “best little boy in the world” would often take the form of behaviors now easily labeled as an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). My actions were called “scrupulous” at the time and though I am not sure of this I think the parish priest reassured my parents that I would outgrow it. My OCD was of course really the result of buying into the Catholic Religion and its not so subtle forms of child abuse and trying I thought to respond appropriately. I am not referring to the really rarer than you might think forms of overt pedophilia some clergy excelled in but rather I feel the much more widespread, serious and damaging psychological terror inflicted by the relentless indoctrination. Applying the word ‘scrupulous’ to me was of course incorrect. The correct word to use would have been “temperamental” a code word for a gay fellow in the 1950’s. Is he ‘temperamental’ men would ask of one another when discretion was appropriate?

The Baltimore Catechism to call attention to one such codified bunch of superstitious baloney from my childhood was a daily part of our school lives. This catechism was a set of questions and of course the absolutely correct answers, which we were repeatedly, told we needed to accept on Faith. Talk about a recipe for mental strife if ever one existed particularly those who are not prone to being comfortable with simply being a quiescent blob of protoplasm. It is I now feel one of the worst forms of child abuse to begin fostering on young innocent emerging minds while still at their mothers breast that they are sinners right out of the box and in need of salvation. Later on in one who is beginning to sense a profound difference from all those he encounters around him this can be quite the obstacle to overcome! A brief quote here from the late Christopher Hitchens on “Faith:”

“ Faith is the surrender of the mind,
it’s the surrender of reason, it’s the surrender of the only thing that makes
us different from other animals.”

So my letter to myself at this time in my life of great mental turmoil would really just be advice to hang in there and it will get better. In a few short years you will run into a nun who will challenge many of your most firmly held beliefs on how the world really works. You also will meet and begin having an ongoing sexual relationship with one of your high school teachers and the first such episode will be on a dissecting table in the school biology lab with Jesus looking down from a crucifix right behind you. Wow, did it ever get better.

© October 2013

About
the Author

I was born in La Porte Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

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The Sound of Silence by Nicholas

I was buying this car, I told myself, so I could get away from traffic. In the summer of 1970, I purchased the first car I ever owned, a 1962 or ‘64 or maybe ’66, golden brown Ford station wagon. Like so many others back then, I was eager to leave the city of San Francisco; I was getting out. Freedom, just like the American myth says, freedom has its own wheels and comfy seats. Gas was only 28 cents a gallon. So, I was on my way.

I headed out across the Bay Bridge, through Berkeley and out east on I-80, past Sacramento and into the Sierras. The mountains. My plan was to spend much of the summer around Nevada City where my friend Keith had a cabin. I wouldn’t have a cabin, though, since I was daring myself to go back to nature in a big way. I would spend my time in the forest hiking and camping. I had my sleeping bag and my dog and other assorted gear and planned to spend days and nights exploring the wilderness of the Sierras. I’d be living out of my car when I wasn’t walking.
The Sierra Nevada are spectacularly beautiful mountains, especially for being so heavily traveled. You can still—at least, in 1970 you could still—really get away. Really find peace and find a quiet that was absolute. It was a quiet that was so complete that it fairly roared with no sound. Oh, there was the occasional buzz of an insect, the call of a bird, a crackling tree branch, but in the heat of the day, not much else. At night, the quiet dark was broken only by the howling of the coyotes as they formed their packs for hunting.
I was alone. Alone at last. Completely alone. Oh, the sweet solitude.
It was crushing. The silence was nothing less than ear-splitting. I could feel it like a weight on my ear drums. I could hear the sound of nothing. I could hear nothingness. I had never before in my life been in a place with a near total absence of sound. There was no background noise. The only noise was the noise of nature and nature usually isn’t very noisy.
And it was scary. In the dark, I was convinced a bear was tramping through the forest to munch on my bones when actually it was a ground squirrel scampering through the leaves and brush on the forest floor.
I loved it. And it was driving me crazy. I found that I loved my solitude but I didn’t care much for being alone. Solitude is something to cherish and an experience that can enrich life. It is also a common form of torture and can eat away a psyche. Solitude can give you strength and it can kill your strength.
And now long after that brave summer, I still value solitude—from time to time, like having the house to myself or meditating on a mountainside or taking a trip to the Shambhala Mountain retreat center to sit before their big Buddha. A bit of solitude is a big help to regaining perspective. But I’m not overly keen on being alone much. When Jamie goes away on one of his periodic business trips, I relish being alone in the house and doing whatever I want when I want without having his schedule to consider. After two days of this, the house gets to be a silent, empty, lonely place.
I actually have found it is possible to capture a bit of solitude—yes, solitude comes in bits unless you’re the desert island type—in a downtown Denver coffee shop where I frequently retreat to do things like withdraw and read or begin writing little essays to read on Monday afternoons.
I’m a city person and like having people around even if I don’t know them or do anything with them. Urban solitude is more of an internal state, a sense of self and a sense of privacy even when you’re in public.
So, I don’t need mountain forests to find respite and retreat. A nice afternoon nap in my quiet basement will do, thanks. Maybe some Tibetan bowls ringing softly to define the quiet while chasing away the crush of silence.

About the Author

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.

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Coming Out Spiritually by Michael King

As I reflect on this topic it seems to mirror in many ways the slow and meandering journey of discovering the gay part of me and eventually becoming a gay activist.

I didn’t understand the differences between religious, spiritual, etc. I now have my own definitions however prefer to avoid the various terms. People state that they are non-denominational, new age, protestant, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, and the list goes on.

I’ve not felt comfortable with any of those labels. Faiths, creeds and rituals may be a part of being religious but I don’t think of them as being spiritual. There are, I am sure, those who are very much in touch spiritually and still participate in religious practices.

My family seldom attended church or even mentioned anything religious and fortunately left the whole arena fairly free of doctrines, duties, biblical teachings, fear, or guilt. I was grown and away from home by the time I encountered a vague concept of the term spiritual.

I did have an experience, the first of many, that has affected my perspective that I will call spiritual. I had the same name as my grandfather. I have since change my name. The family was present and I stood back by the door when he took his last breath. I was 15 and as far as I know no one else saw what I did. I was very calm and detatched. I had a sense that everything was OK. He and I seemed to have an understanding. I was an observer, and at the same time as I heard the death rattle, a shiny golden orb jumped from his head, wavered, and then quickly departed through the wall behind and to the side of the bed. I had the assurance that some kind of future followed this life.

I tried to identify with many belief systems over the years but couldn’t accept any until after the transforming experience I had when I made the decision to divorce my first wife and remove the children from their mother’s influence. I clearly stated to her, “I don’t give a shit about you or about myself. I’m going to do what is best for the children!” An experience of being in the future in the presence of what I have called a being of light and pure love followed. I’ll not go into further detail but my life changed forever.

I looked for information about my vision as that is what I think it was. I read and studied, attended lectures and workshops, read the Bible from cover to cover and most if not all the writings that were not included in the versions most often accepted. I explored eastern teachings, metaphysical writings and any other potential source hoping to find a better understanding of my experience.

I’ve since forgotten most of what all I studied because I didn’t find the answers I was looking for until one day after we moved to Denver. I was on my way to a bookstore to purchase some books that might have some answers when a voice directed me to buy a particular book. I recognized the voice but that’s another story.

I will say that I not only got the answers to the questions but I also received an expanded perspective far beyond anything I might have imagined. Experientially I am gaining in an understanding and have progressed in some levels of maturity.

When did I come out? That is probably the part that is most humorous. Every time I had an insight or learned something that I thought was profound I tried to share it with those around me. Mistake!!! No one was interested. Everyone has found what they want or have a prescribed approach they plan to take to get their answers. I came out so many times and was ignored just like when I came out gay. Everyone already knew it and some told me they were waiting for me to figure it out.

Among the blessings I have are the love I have from my family and close friends and some that aren’t so close, my rich inner life and the many insights, visions and personal revelations that have formed my present self. I have great appreciation for these blessings.

So long as there is consciousness, expanded awarenesses and new expressions of a spiritual nature can continue to enrichen our lives. I don’t think that coming out spiritually will ever stop.

July 1, 2013

About the Author

I go by the drag name, Queen Anne Tique. My real name is Michael King. I am a gay activist who finally came out of the closet at age 70. I live with my lover, Merlyn, in downtown Denver, Colorado. I was married twice, have 3 daughters, 5 grandchildren and a great grandson. Besides volunteering at the GLBT Center and doing the SAGE activities,” Telling your Story”,” Men’s Coffee” and the “Open Art Studio”. I am active in Prime Timers and Front Rangers. I now get to do many of the activities that I had hoped to do when I retired; traveling, writing, painting, doing sculpture, cooking and drag.

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Epiphany by Phillip Hoyle

Stay with me for a minute while I wander through the hallways of old church buildings where I worked and where my choirs sang. The choral year began with me making selections of anthems for each holiday and theme sometimes in consultation with the liturgical calendar although I did not work in a liturgical church. Still, making music in a modified gothic building made me conscious of the long-lasting traditions of church music and of the many reforms that music had undergone. And of course, I liked music from many ages and in many styles.

I learned that the liturgical calendar held some oddities. The year began soon after Thanksgiving, five or six weeks before New Year’s Day. Advent announced the coming Christmas celebration, but thanks to the endless playing of holiday tunes in malls, over airwaves, and at concerts, by the time we got to Christmas we had reached our tolerance. I thought it might be nice to save a three-wise-men song for Epiphany, but what meaning would it have for nice Kansans played out with such music? Christmas was over, the gifts open, and the trees trashed or stored for next year. I realized that for our church I’d have to modify my approach. So Epiphany drifted by without much notice, Epiphany that in western tradition (Roman Catholic and its reforming offspring) pointed to the baptism of Jesus and that in eastern tradition (Orthodox Catholic of various national identities) to the arrival of the Zoroastrian Magicians from the East.

Now stay with me a little longer while I tell you a bit about my religious experience. The Christianity I received came delivered intact. It honored the biblical revelation as being sufficient for all times and assumed that with slight differences in perception the good news was sufficient for all cultures. Yet the form of its understanding relied on an accommodation of an 18 century philosopher! It was systemized in a simple way and taught to children and adults as the truth. I was happy with it, studied the bible, sang the songs, taught its tenets, prayed to the God it taught in the ways it prescribed. That Christianity allowed for individualism—after all it was a 19th century accommodation of the Gospel and the Enlightenment. It assumed that the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ had occurred, that biblical epiphanies, such as the appearance of the risen Lord to the apostle Paul, were true. It assumed that the need for further revelation was over, the age of miracles concluded, and the truth already delivered!

It made sense to me. Its personal emphasis was one of belief as in the confession of faith represented by the public question, “Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ?” and by the time I came along, its existential element was caught up in the idea that you “take Jesus Christ to be your personal savior.” Assumed also was the idea that this belief would make you a better person and that you should pray and go to church regularly.

The system was a reform of the orthodox doctrines of ecclestical authority based on an apostolate, and so forth. It was also a democratic accommodation of church structure and authority that fit in with the American ethos very well. Special gifts of the spirit were generally relegated to the ancient past as no longer needed for faith in the modern age.

The very rational religion seemed official; I found it sufficient for a very rational me. Happily I went on my religious way and into religious work at which I excelled. One could say I had a very rational calling into the ministry of a very rational church.

But non-rational elements kept creeping into my systematic bliss, and some of them seemed blissful to me. Reading Christian theology written by English Dons, I wondered at their preoccupation with classical gods and myths. Why did their inclusion seem so important to them? I didn’t understand, yet in my own mind I heard and treasured the drums and chants of Native American tribes, their stories and folkways, and eventually I came to appreciate how they illuminated my Christian understandings. I spent a lot of time planning religious education events, and affective elements from other religious expressions made way into my designs. I directed choirs in the very rational church and one guest asked if ours was a charismatic church. “Why do you ask?” the senior minister queried. “Well, because of your choir director.” When he told me, I wondered if I seemed to her to be lifted into some kind of charismatic ecstasy. Well, I did get to dance in church.

Please, please stay with me. We’re getting to the story. At a personal level there were those homosexual stories I’ve told you about, experiences that for me seemed to hold so much godly content, that seemed so centrally to define who I was, experiences that revealed personal truths that ran counter to democratic voting-block opinions. My personal truths promised to interrupt the church’s general flow of power and tolerance thus leaving me quite vulnerable. The truth of my personal faith belied the tentative acceptance of gays by the rather liberal faith community I in which worked. Perhaps I was looking for some personal epiphany to redefine who I was in relationship with the now-seeming insufficiently enlightened Christianity I had long accepted. I started separating myself from the religion of my forebears. It wasn’t that I quit being Christian or turned my back on God, but that my Christianity became more personalized, luring me out of the institutional door, so to speak. Now it wasn’t as if homosexuality didn’t exist in the church. That seems obvious enough to our age. But the homosexuality was closeted and often frantic. It was as if everything about religion worked for homosexuals except the institutional rejection of them. That’s got to be a terrifying dilemma. One gay minister had an epiphany and organized what became the Metropolitan Community Church, a special home for LGBTs that eventually began to seek inclusion in the National and World Council of Churches only to be rejected. (Oh well, what’s new?)

I slipped quietly out the back door of the modified gothic buildings and made my way to the big city. I attended the MCC until I got over some of the initial trauma of my leaving both marriage and ministry. Then I began being irked by openly gay clergy. What was that?

Finally I had an epiphany. Mine was not a view of God sitting on the high throne of Heaven, of the resurrected Christ appealing to me in his very human body, but rather, a vision of the homophobia that resided deep within my heart, my body, my mind. It was the homophobia that lurked behind all the nice things I had thought about gay folk and about my gay self. The content of this epiphany—really an emotion-filled insight into myself—was that the culture had kept the upper hand even deep inside me. Slowly through this new vision of myself, I was converting into a self-loving gay human. My homophobia that got focused on a gay church and gay clergy really was my self-hatred that had to be removed, that had to be loved out of me by the God of love that I had long professed, and that had to be loved out of me by the open and costly process of loving men and being loved by them.

Well … I don’t quite know how to move this story to a close, but I do love you people who listen to my stories. I do love you people who so beautifully love gay me. For you are the embodiment of my great religious epiphany.

Denver, 2012

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing. His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Paradise Found by Gillian

One of the most wonderful hours of my life was spent in a church.

Now, to realize the enormity of that statement, you need to remember that I don’t do religion.
I stopped going to church in my early youth and have never felt the need to return except of course for the obligatory weddings and funerals.
I consider myself a spiritual person, but not in the least religious.

When I was told we were going to church this Sunday morning, I simply sighed and silently acquiesced. Betsy and I were in Hawaii, sharing a condo with a woman we had met during an Elderhostel week at the Grand Canyon. Liz was several years older than we were, had never been married, but we don’t think she was a lesbian. She just befriended us at Elderhostel and we kept loosely in touch via E-mail afterwards. Suddenly one day a message appeared inviting us to stay with her in her timeshare condo on Maui. She would also have a car. It took us three seconds to accept.

Liz was an “in charge” kinda gal! We had discovered in our first few hours in Hawaii that she had her agenda and we were expected to fall into line. Not that we had any complaints, once we got the idea in our heads. Free accommodation and transportation and our activities all planned out. What’s to complain about? We had a wonderful couple of weeks.

This final Sunday we were watching the waves while sipping our morning o.j. when we learned of the impending church visit and so reluctantly dragged ourselves off the beach to change clothes, pile into the car, and drive along a beautiful coast road to Keawalai Congregational United Church of Christ.

Oh, what a breathtakingly heartachingly beautiful spot!
Located right on the bright blue ocean and nestled in flowering shrubs and trees and coconut palms, sat this small church built of mellow burnt coral rock and roofed with brown shingles.
Beside it a small, serene, cemetery contained the graves of area families including many paniolo, Hawaiian cowboys. Several of the grave markers contained rare ceramic photo plates, none of which, amazingly, had been vandalized or stolen although the place is wide open to anyone.

This church was founded originally in 1832, the services being held in a church built of pili grass. The present structure was built, in 1855, completely of stone and coral from the beach and wood from the adjacent forest. Everything in the church is Hawaiian, since 1992 when the old floor of Douglas fir was replaced by native ohia wood. The land for the church was purchased for $80. One can only imagine what it must be worth now.

We wandered to the church, on a much worn path of beach sand, midst a motley crew. There were indigenous Hawaiian families in traditional and modern dress; there were residents obviously of more recent Hawaiian heritage, and a few, like us, conspicuous tourists. We were made immediately conspicuous by the fact that we all wore shoes or sandals. The permanent members of the congregation, and the minister, were all barefoot no matter how nicely they were dressed.
In the midst of our enchantment with this, came an unfamiliar sound. It was rather like a foghorn but as we approached the main church door we were further delighted to find two men blowing into conch shells, calling the faithful to worship. Inside the cool church we found palm fronds for fanning oneself during the service if required, more conch shells and palm fronds and local bamboo, and magnificent hand carved offering bowls and a cross, all made from local wood.
The windows contained no glass; were simply open to the soft ocean breezes, and the colorful birds flitting in and out.
It was a uniquely wonderful mix of pagan and Christian and we loved it.

I found myself dreading the beginning of the service. I was so at peace in that amazing place and I just knew that the advent of religious dogma would ruin it.
It did not.
The service was conducted in both Hawaiian and English and was as delightful as the setting.
But then came time for the sermon. Hah! Now it would all be ruined, said my cynical self.
Wrong again. 
The pastor spoke with eloquent passion in a very “what would Jesus do?” way, and of course the fact that I agreed with every word he said had something to do with the comfort zone in which I found myself. This was June of 2003, a month after the U.S. had completed its invasion of Iraq, which I certainly did not see as anything Jesus would do, and the Pastor left his congregation in no doubt as to his opinions. The words from this pulpit did not spatter me like shrapnel, which is sometimes the case, but settled firmly in my heart and I have never forgotten them.

To put icing on the cake of this wonderful experience, we had somehow stumbled into a baptism. At the end of the main service the church empties out for the short walk onto Maluaka Beach where the baby was treated to a short dip in the warm blue Pacific.
What a way to start out on life’s journey!

Much of modern Hawaii does not, for me, fulfill its claims of Paradise. It is, sadly, Paradise lost. But that tiny corner, surrounded as it is by gated communities and multi-million dollar mansions, provides a glimpse of what the real Hawaii once was. It is truly a tiny piece of Paradise found. 

Lakewood, 11/5/2012

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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MCCR, Dignity, Integrity and the Radical Fairies by Louis

Personally, I am what you would call semi-religious. In this essay I talk a lot about “I, I, I, me, me, me” not for the sake of an ego trip but to use myself as a typical gay American trying to find his spiritual niche, a pilgrim. I think religion should be a part of one’s life. We know, however, all too well, that the churches we have been dealing with as we were growing up were mostly intolerant bastions of homophobia.

Many religious gay people grew up in a church they thought was a sanctuary. A sanctuary is supposed to be a safe place. If the identity of the gay religious people was revealed, they were often asked to leave; in many instances, the “sanctuary” was not safe at all, au contraire, it was dangerous and hostile. As a result, the vast majority of gay people have become atheists, agnostics or humanists, and they have a low opinion of churchdom. My parents felt that religion was a mental sickness. So many wars in the past have been fought over differences in religious dogma. They thought religiosity = hateful intolerance and narrow-mindedness. And religious people just love judging their neighbors. They claim to worship God but they really worship the almighty dollar and social climbing.

I thought many religious people have these faults, but just as many do not. So, I went shopping for a church. Many churches nowadays tolerate gay parishioners. MCC offers an even better theology in which we celebrate our sexual orientation in a joyous Christian service. It is completely gay and Lesbian positive and completely Christian. Jim Burns is the pastor of MCC Denver. He is exactly what is needed. About 30 years ago, an MCC minister said that real liberation and empowerment of our community will come from our spiritual understanding of the divine nature of our sexual orientation, of our status as God’s children with all the rights and privileges that derive there from. I feel comfortable with that assessment.

Integrity is the gay “caucus” of the Episcopal Church which claims it has a positive view on gay rights, which is true. Integrity nowadays assists gays looking for a church to choose an accepting Episcopal church as opposed to a homophobic congregation, of which there are still many unfortunately.

In New York City, however, Integrity has a history of putting on beautiful services of its own with the emphasis on pomp and circumstance and beautiful organ and classical orchestral music. If nothing else, an Integrity service was a grandiose cultural event. Their services were held at St. Martin in the Fields in the West Village. It was run by Lesbian and gay people. It was Episcopal but quite independent.

After a while, the NYC Episcopal Church said they did not see any need for Integrity unless it became a funded ministry of the Episcopal Church. The leader of Integrity at the time, Nick Dowen, appropriately declined the offer of funding. One of the later presidents of Integrity agreed that Integrity was unnecessary. Her name was Sandy, a black Lesbian who said she felt perfectly comfortable as a parishioner of St. Paul’s Apostles Church, which she attends regularly with her partner. St. Paul’s Apostle’s church is located a block away from Penn Station. I did not agree with Sandy. Now all Integrity does is guide Lesbian and gay pilgrims to friendlier churches. I noticed that Integrity Denver has the same policy of guiding and advising only, no actual leadership rôle. I was disappointed with the way the old New York City Integrity ended.

I am sure that the Episcopal Church’s claim that it does accept Lesbian and gay parishioners is 90% true, but, without Integrity offering something special to the wider gay community, I lost interest in the Episcopal church.

Back in the 70’s I went to one Lutheran Church in Queens and spoke with the pastor after the service; he was very homophobic. I went to another Lutheran Church where a more liberal pastor said they welcomed gay and Lesbian people. The better choice yet was the United Church of Christ that combines its claim of accepting Lesbian and gay people with a rather aggressive ministry of advocating for our rights.

MCC fulfills my Protestant side, but I am also part Catholic. I thought in error that the Episcopal Church with Integrity as intermediary might be the answer. It wasn’t. So what about Dignity? As sympathetic as I am to their mission or should I say “mission impossible” of reintegrating Lesbian and gay people into the Roman Catholic Church, despite my Catholic side, I do not feel the need to join the RCC.

I want a gay and Lesbian positive congregation that worships with a Catholic inspiration, but I still have not found one.

      Q. “Do you believe in God?”
      A. “Yes, but I do not believe in organized religion.”

A lot of people feel comfortable with this position. I think what this really means is that, though I am a believer, the established churches are for the most part so reactionary, mindless and hateful, they repel me. The adversaries have big well-financed religious organizations that protect an evil status quo. I have nothing; I have no church that is geared to promote my interests including my spiritual well-being.

Lesbian and gay people have been victimized more than most by an evil status quo church. I do not, however, think that this revulsion of traditional churches is universal. The Unitarian Universalist Church is a beacon of enlightenment. Perhaps the gay pilgrim could join a UU congregation and fight the fight for gay rights in an American organized religious setting.

A radical alternative for the Lesgay pilgrim could be the Radical Faeries. According to Wikipedia:

The Faeries trace their name to the 1979 Spiritual Conference for Radical Fairies.[note 1] The conference, organized by Harry Hay and his lover John Burnside, along with Los Angeles activist Don Kilhefner and Jungian therapist Mitch Walker, was held over the Labor Day weekend in Benson, Arizona and attracted over two hundred participants. From this, participants started holding more multi-day events called “gatherings”. In keeping with hippie, neopagan, and eco-feminist trends of the time, gatherings were held out-of-doors in natural settings.[6] To this end, distinct Radical Faerie communities have created sanctuaries that are “close to the land”.[7]

The Radical Faeries recognize that, in the context of an earth-oriented spirituality, such as the religion of Native Americans, gay people were never marginalized but were accepted members of the Tribe. Radical Faeries also promote the idea that earth-oriented spirituality should be based on our common sexual orientation. This leads to empowerment and liberation of our community. I think the Radical Faeries make a very convincing case for a new spirituality.

© 25 June 2013 




About the Author



I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

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My Bi-Sexual Soul by Terry

My friend Ann, my college buddy, bridesmaid, and now Facebook Friend and I were just yesterday in the midst of a Facebook debate when she reminded me how we used to have “knock down drag out” arguments, forty odd years ago, the favorite topic having been religion. Still a loaded subject.

Atheists don’t believe religion is reality based, some adamant having suffered at the hands of hurtful and or bigoted leaders and their followers. Some denominations or nondenominational churches point fingers at each other, claiming to be the only ones who will avoid hell and other forms of outer darkness because of their particular beliefs and practices. My church welcomes LGBT people, where we are respected as equals and there is no problem with marriage or who uses what bathroom.

My soul, I believe, is probably an average soul. I find painting and writing and helping others to be its best nutrients. Of course, a community of kind people falls in that category.

In the early seventies I remember that gay and lesbian people were walking out of churches in the middle of sermons in protest of their being set up as sinful horrible and lesser than.” The churches took longer to realize that there were bi-sexuals in their world, so it seemed to me that the others wound up paving the way, or at least beating down some of the resistance to gay ways.

There are still many hostile and bigoted churches, though educating individuals seems to have helped in some quarters.

I get annoyed when I hear about pools of burning phosphorus, as though God didn’t have better things to do than to barbeque unruly, misbehaving, or simply “bad” individuals.

There are the metaphysicals and the mystics. I suppose I fall somewhere in that category, god being more of a mysterious metaphor.

There is obvious corruption and downright evil in some religious groups and factions. Some are distressingly ambitious to take over the American Government so as to enforce their beliefs and way of life on everyone else.

I find what is nourishing to my soul (which is another kind of metaphor to me) among friends and kind strangers. As far as coming out spiritually I am just not into a lot of openness. For me it would be just wrongheaded to inform people who I do not know or have reason to trust. Coming Out is unquestioningly spoken of as the only way of life that is valid, healthy and wholesome in the LGBT Community. As a pure benefit. For me, some know and some I don’t bother to inform.

I wish there was some way out for the LGBT young people abandoned by their parents to try to survive on the streets. It is shocking how many there are, who came out or were outed to awful parents.

When the minister of my hometown church found out I was not heterosexual, he did not have any problem with that. In that church we had talk back sessions where anything could and was intelligently and respectfully discussed after the sermon and main service. Free thinkers were not chastised or excluded.

I wish we didn’t have all this bad blood between some atheists and some religious people. Religion, is one of the ways ordinary people can be divided against each other, especially when manipulated by those powerful officials who have a vested interest in keeping civilians weak and easy to control for their own aims, enrichment and ambitions. In fact, as is described in “Genocide, A Problem From Hell,” the root cause of genocide is the purposeful manipulation to drive people against each other. Using religion as well as race, and class. Hitler was especially adept at creating this type of divide between Germans, within their citizenship and between the Germans and those from countries that he wished to attack and conquer, kill, and enslave.

I haven’t really told a story. Maybe there is too much patchwork to my spiritual development.

At twelve I decided that I did not believe in talking snakes and naked people in a garden, much less naked people getting kicked out of a garden for eating an apple. Thus, I declared that I was not going to church any more, and was given the ultimatum that I would have to spend the day in my room, which I did. Nothing could shake my resolve and eventually my parents gave up and just let it go.

I eventually came to a more sophisticated interpretation.

© 2 July 2013 




About the Author  

I am an artist and writer after having spent the greater part of my career serving variously as a child care counselor, a special needs teacher, a mental health worker with teens and young adults, and a home health care giver for elderly and Alzheimer patients. Now that I am in my senior years I have returned to writing and art, which I have enjoyed throughout my life.

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From the Pulpit by Michael King

Not too long after I got my divorce from my first wife I allowed myself to have male appreciation fantasies. I had curiosities since I had not done the showers, etc. that most guys do in P.E. in Jr. High and High School because I was exempt due to asthma. I had seen a few naked guys briefly but not enough to have my curiosity satisfied. I also had confusion regarding religion. Having had some personal spiritual experiences, my religious beliefs were not well thought out and seemed problematic with anything homosexual. But I was becoming increasingly intrigued with masculine appreciation and had desires to explore further
One Sunday my son and I decided to go to church. We hadn’t done that before and I also felt that he and I needed to spend more time together, just the two of us. The church we went to was the Episcopal Church in Honolulu near where we lived. It was quite ornate and definitely High Church.

I don’t know if the speaker was a priest, but I was totally fascinated by his appearance, especially his forearm and elbow.

I had never before looked at an arm in the way I was seeing his. I was totally turned on by his arm as he was gesturing to emphasize his talk. He was also good looking and seemed to be in good shape. He also was probably in his thirties or maybe late twenties.

This new experience created both emotional and intellectual conflict as well as religious and spiritual confusion. I still think this new fascination with a man’s forearm and elbow was the kind of peek experience that I can look back on as a turning point in my life. I don’t have any idea what the sermon was about, but it was from the pulpit that I first dared to let myself imagine any uncensored fascination with the male body.

It took many years for me to be relaxed about my interests or to let myself be free to fully explore the wonders of masculine beauty.

Now forty years later I am open, unashamed and thoroughly enjoy forearms, elbows, and lots and lots of other body parts and am free to do so all day long, including my dreams, my fantasies and my love life.

About the Author 

I go by the drag name, Queen Anne Tique. My real name is Michael King. I am a gay activist who finally came out of the closet at age 70. I live with my lover, Merlyn, in downtown Denver, Colorado. I was married twice, have 3 daughters, 5 grandchildren and a great grandson. Besides volunteering at the GLBT Center and doing the SAGE activities,” Telling your Story”,” Men’s Coffee” and the “Open Art Studio”. I am active in Prime Timers and Front Rangers. I now get to do many of the activities that I had hoped to do when I retired; traveling, writing, painting, doing sculpture, cooking and drag.